Wow! You seriously got modded down for that post. And yet it's one of the first comments that actually is informative about what was actually said. Slashdot Hivemind is in full-force tonight!

Well software makes selling "different products" often just a case of enabling or disabling different features so the only way to differentiate different licensing terms is with these sorts of limitations. Market differentiation can be a good thing. Instead of everyone paying £8, some can pay £5 and some can pay £10. Nobody's paying for more than they need and nobody's free-loading off those who would be paying for features they didn't want. I'm not saying this is always the perfect case once marketing people get hold of it, but the idea is sound and a useful one. If you were buying something physical and you bought a more expensive version with extra features you needed, you wouldn't feel cheated because you'd look at the extra bits and think "this cost more to produce than the version without these features". With digital products, those limitations seem arbitrary, but it's just a matter of perception: it still took more to add those extra features and they still add value and pricing is still based on people buying that which they want.

Slight correction, btw. The £5 version is available for Linux. I know because I had it. Though I upgraded to Premium to get the better bit-rates.

Monopolies are bad.

No, that determines whether they are the best deal. What determines whether or not they are worth purchasing a service from, is whether you value the service. Suzuki might offer great cost and value compared to Harley Davidson, but unless I'm in the market for a motorbike, it's irrelevant.

It's not useful to compare things to themselves! You have to compare them to something else. In order to show other things that you could get for the same money, I picked on rented movies. I could pick a lot of other examples, too. The idea is to try and gauge the value of €10 so that the cost of streaming music can be properly calibrated. Not everyone values renting movies. Some people might value beer and I could have said: it's the cost of a couple of beers. But enough people rent movies that it's a decent enough tool to use to draw a value comparison. 10 is just a number. It could be a lot or a little. By pegging other items that are found at position "10" however, we can get a feel for where 10 is on the scale of things.

What's virtual about it? I pay the money and music comes out of my speakers. If you'll pardon me for the phrasing, it sounds pretty real to me.

Okay. If you feel £5 a month is unreasonable for endless music, two questions. One, what would you say is a reasonable price for endless music? Two, do you feel that endless music is of less value than, for example, a pizza and a beer once a month, a couple of movie rentals once a month, a few pairs of socks from a department store each month?A couple of pre-packed sandwiches from a supermarket or local deli? Music is a luxury good, not a necessity, so it's easy to compare it to lots of other things and see how it rates. I honestly believe that anyone making the argument that £5 a month is too much, who isn't actually hard up for money (i.e. they spend money on other things they don't require), is really not going to impress anyone with their position.

Both the BBC and Slashdot did.

I don't believe I am. Firstly, "knowledge" isn't a good word to use for playing an instrument. Skill would be. Secondly, I don't see this clear distinction between "talent" and skill. Do some people have a greater or lesser aptitude for music? Yes. But it's misguided to put that aptitude on a pedestal above practice and study. Do you play an instrument? Because myself and my friends who are professional musicians - I know that they would disagree with your stance. Being a great musician is a little bit raw aptitude and an overwhelming amout of study and practice. The bald statement that "talent is singular, and cannot be bought or taught" sounds very hollow to me. As I said earlier, I don't know of any really good musician that wasn't taught. I suppose there might be an example out there somewhere, but they'd be a massive exception.

Actually, that is something largely learned and also a false dichotomy. I strongly suspect that you haven't played music professionally and would be interested to know what experience as a musician you have.

Well, I was meaning to... ;)

I don't think Spotify should be basing their pricing around what appeals to people who don't have much interest in music. ;)

Then you are either phenomenally cheap or your have no interest in streaming music. Neither of which apply to most of the people in this discussion.

I don't know what this "average person" is to whom you refer, but outside of Slashdot, I think most people think the notion of copyright is reasonably fair. Inside of Slashdot, you get modded down for being anti-piracy.

Well Spotify isn't available in Canada so I guess that this particular excuse doesn't apply for this poster.

€10 a month isn't an "awful lot of money" to most people. It's the price of a pizza and a beer. I'm not going to pick on people to whom it is a lot of money. But I would certainly tell people who have that money available for other things but somehow value music so low that they think this is overpriced, that their expectations are skewed. You'd probably pay around this to rent a couple of movies over a month. And this you can listen to 24/7.

Don't have to trust you - I'm another paying customer. Honestly, I pay the £10 per month to get pretty much any music I've ever heard of almost instantly available. And if you don't want the high bit-rate or mobile service, it's half that. High bit-rate is 320Kbps Ogg, standard is, from memory, 160kbps, so unless you have good speakers, you might not even care about the bit rate.

Trust Slashdot to highlight the "So long, guess I'll go back to pirating music comment". Honestly - is it really that horrifyingly out of whack to charge £5 a month for endless music? I don't think many people have the right to be outraged about someone wanting £5 a month for that. It just makes them sound stupid and / or greedy.